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Recently (since last iOS update?) my contacts on both iPhone and iPad mini have mysteriously had their last names cleared out and stuck on the end of the first name. Even more strangely it’s not all of them, about 95%. Annoyingly when I correct some entries on both devices they get messed up again a few minutes later. Latest iOS, not (knowingly) using iCloud). Settings are for display first last, sort last first.
iPhone 8
LordTimmy,
It sounds like you have your iPad and iPhone both set to have iCloud as the default calendar now, which is great! This will really only impact new contacts. When you create a new contact it will default to save in iCloud, but it won’t impact the contacts that you’re already using in Yahoo.
For example, if you open the Contacts app and tap on “Groups” in the top left on either device, you should see both your Yahoo and iCloud contacts listed. Deselect all iCloud and leave only Yahoo selected. Tap Done on the top right, and you should see all of your Yahoo contacts. If these contacts are contacts that you can live without, you might try turning Contacts off at Settings > Password & Accounts > [your Yahoo account] on one of your devices to see if you like it.
Good luck!
LordTimmy,
It sounds like you have your iPad and iPhone both set to have iCloud as the default calendar now, which is great! This will really only impact new contacts. When you create a new contact it will default to save in iCloud, but it won’t impact the contacts that you’re already using in Yahoo.
For example, if you open the Contacts app and tap on “Groups” in the top left on either device, you should see both your Yahoo and iCloud contacts listed. Deselect all iCloud and leave only Yahoo selected. Tap Done on the top right, and you should see all of your Yahoo contacts. If these contacts are contacts that you can live without, you might try turning Contacts off at Settings > Password & Accounts > [your Yahoo account] on one of your devices to see if you like it.
Good luck!
Hey LordTimmy ,
You’ve done some detective work! Thank you for taking the time to sleuth that and type it out. I am am understanding you correctly, you’ve deducted the following:
You can check the default account for both devices by going to Settings > Contacts > Default.
I suggest making sure both of your devices are using iCloud as the default account. This won’t sync your changes to Yahoo, but it also won’t allow Yahoo to impact the formatting of your contact names.
Hopefully this helps.
Cheers!
Hey LordTimmy,
Welcome to Apple Support Communities. I can see that you’re experiencing an issue where your contacts are combining the first and last name into one field, and that you’re not able to get corrections to stick.
It sounds like you may be using a service to sync your contacts across both your devices if it happens on both devices. You mentioned you weren’t using iCloud, do you know how your contacts are managed? (e.g. your email provider)
Are you able to log into the web client for your provider and make changes there? If so, do they save?
These answers might hep others answer your question.
Take Care!
Here's the full setup and tests I've done.
I sync with a Yahoo account. Both this and (now) iCloud are set up in Settings/Accounts to have Contacts On (on iphone 8 and ipad mini 4, latest IoS).
On Contacts/ Groups both Yahoo and iCloud are displayed - both are ticked.
Yahoo contacts used to have First and Last names (on the Basic version) but the new (?when? - recently since Verizon takeover?) version only has Name.
On iPhone and iPad most Contacts have 2 ‘linked contacts’, Yahoo and iCloud. I went through and laboriously set all contacts to use the iCloud for the ‘unified contact display’ on both devices. This fixes the display to show in last name order with first name shown too (not bold) for those with 2 links.
Ones that (I think) I created on iPhone do not show any linked contacts, but they have been/ are replicated on Yahoo after a few minutes (?after exiting and reloading on Yahoo and iPhone?), with last name appended to Yahoo Name (so it contains
first, last), and first name on iPhone showing Yahoo Name, and last name cleared. They still do not show any linked contacts.
None of the iPhone-entered contacts get replicated to iPad (and so changes don't get applied either).
New iPad entries do get replicated to iPhone, but not Yahoo.
Some tests I did:
- Create contact on iPhone – first and last name. Replicated to Yahoo, both names in Name, iPhone version auto-changed to have Yahoo Name in first name only, surname cleared. Not replicated to iPad. No ‘linked contacts’ shown.
- Create contact on iPad – first and last name. Replicated to iPhone, first and last name, not replicated to Yahoo. No ‘linked contacts’ shown.
- Create contact on Yahoo – first and last name (used old Basic version of Yahoo software). First and last concatenated automatically when viewed through newer Yahoo software, replicated to iPhone with copy of Yahoo Name in first name, no
last name. Not replicated to iPad. No ‘linked contacts’ shown.
I’d like iPhone-entered contacts to replicate to iPad (and Yahoo) but not get subsequently messed up by Yahoo. iPad-entered contacts to replicate to iPhone as now (and Yahoo). Yahoo-entered contacts to get replicated to iPhone and iPad, where I
can subsequently change Name to first and last name and have that displayed on iPhone and iPad, and not get messed up by Yahoo later.
Any ideas (and thanks for reading this long spiel 😊)?
Hi Allen, yup you summarise my situation well, and thanks for the suggestions. Here's what I've done since. iPhone and iPad (!) were both set to default Yahoo. Both now switched to default iCloud. When I edit a contact on iPad (reenter last name and clear out last name from first name) this replicates to iPhone. Annoyingly it then resets to first and last in first, and last cleared (despite the iCloud default) after a while, on both iPhone and iPad. Doing the same change on the iPhone has the same result, so at least iPhone changes are replicating on iPad now! I'm guessing iPhone is somehow still taking Yahoo as default, so changes go to Yahoo, Yahoo does the 'first/last and clear last' thing and that then gets passed back to iPhone, which now passes it to iPad too! This is just supposition though.
This appears only to be on the contacts I entered on iPhone/Pad originally still, where no option to select iCloud as unified contact display is offered. All the contacts where I've been able to select iCloud seem to be fine (because even though Yahoo is messing up it's contact, I'm using the ok iCloud one for index display)
Can you shed any more light/ suggest anything else? I guess the ultimate attack would be to turn off Contacts on the Yahoo account setting - bit worried I might lose some contacts but I don't really use Yahoo contacts any more so no big deal.
Thanks for you r help so far.
Tim
I selected Yahoo contacts on the iPhone and iCloud contacts on theiPad for a comparison. There were about 30 extras on the iPhone, many of which I don't use any more, so I've turned off Contacts on the Yahoo account and will re-enter the ones I still use on the iCloud account. Bit of a pain but hey ho. I modified one of the contacts that was being reset just to make sure this is no longer being mucked up by Yahoo, and it isn't, so that's good.
Still don't really understand why Yahoo was being taken as the default account when I'd switched to iCloud, but at least the problem has gone away with only a little discombobulation!
Thanks for your help.
Regards,
Tim
Contacts last name cleared and appended to first name
